Directing
The Cherry Orchard at the University at Buffalo
As a director…
I seek to empower student artists in the rehearsal room by creating a space where experimentation is primary and risk taking is valued.
I aim to create stories that not only reverberate with audiences but also enhance and enrich the experience of student actors and designers by giving them the confidence and agency necessary to make bold choices.
I see each production as an investigation of the unknown and consider the experience of not knowing to be an artistically generative condition for both myself and the students. The unknown can be messy, scary, and shocking, but in my experience, this is where the pith of great theatre resides: in the moments when an actor or designer isn’t sure. I believe a director’s responsibility is to guide student actors and designers to an understanding of their own power and skills as interpretive artists in situations of doubt.
Directing at the college and university level is always a further extension of the work we do in class, and a laboratory of artistic practice and exploration within the community. I see the rehearsal as a brave space for exploring student creative and intellectual impulses. I believe it is the responsibility of a director to put the power in the students’ hands, attempting to bring them to an understanding of their own potential and abilities.
Upcoming Directing Projects:
Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Niagara County Community College, 2024
Recent Directing Credits:
Prelude to a Kiss by Craig Lucas, Bellissima Productions, 2024
On the Verge by Eric Overmyer, Buffalo State College, 2023
Brilliant Works of Art by Donna Hoke (Reading), First Look Buffalo, 2022
Speed of Light by Bella Poynton (Reading), Buffalo State College, 2021
Melancholy by Andrew-Elijah Schindler, ATHE New Play Development Workshop, 2021
You Before Me by Samantha Marchant, ARTA Porch Performances, 2021
Zoom Coaster by Deborah Yarchun, Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Play Festival 45, 2021
Glass Houses by Sam Collier, Post Industrial Productions, 2020
Live and Nothing But! by Jon Elston, Post Industrial Productions, 2020
A Rare Bird by Bella Poynton, Weird Plays Project at The TANK, 2021
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov, The University at Buffalo, 2018
The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Stephen Adly Guirgis, Buffalo State College, 2019
Still,Quiet by Emily Dendinger (Reading), Navigators Theatre Company, 2015
Ripple Effect by Anne Snead (Reading), Road Less Traveled Productions, 2015